by Claire Tacon
The rock left thin red scrapes on my back. If I hadn’t been trashed I might have cried, but I wasn’t feeling very much, so I just bit my lips and tried to get into the rhythm of it. What I remember most was the algae smell of the water, the campfire smoke in Chuck’s hair as it curtained my face and the sound of the water slapping on the rocks. It didn’t take long. Chuck had the sense to withdraw.
We lay by the rocks for a while, not touching. I’ve just been screwed, I thought, and didn’t know how I should feel about it. Chuck pulled me against his side and kissed my forehead. “I’ve been waiting to lay you for a long time, Ellie.” I’m embarrassed to admit it made me feel special.
When we got back to the party, the clutch of people still around the campfire catcalled as we got dried off. One of Chuck’s friends high-fived him. The girl on his lap gave me a sideways smile. She was a few grades younger but already had a reputation. At the time it felt like she was saying, “See. You’re no better than me.” I’d spent all of high school keeping my head down, getting good grades, avoiding the kind of trouble girls like her got in.
Classes had already ended so I was spared hallway rumours. It meant that I could spend the summer insulated, hanging out with people who couldn’t judge me because they’d done worse. None of them would be following me to Acadia. The only person I’d have to fess up to was Bernie.
When he gets back in the cab, Bernie spares me by bringing up the soccer team straightway. “You going to put your boy on the Canning league?”
“I have to call. Last week they told us it might be too late.”
“Jason’s the team sponsor. He’ll talk to the coach if you want.”
“Really?”
“Sure,” he says, as if it’s no big thing. “It’d be good. That way Linda can meet you properly and your boys can meet Max and Lisa.”
“Max really looks like you.”
“He does?” Bernie gives me a strange look. “They’re good kids.”
I settle up with Jason in the auto-shop office, an old storage closet that’s been converted into the accounts department. Jason fiddles through some papers and pulls out a receipt book. “Most of my customers just give cash.”
I’ve only got plastic but he waves off my apology. “Don’t worry, just means I have to find the clicker.” He locates an old credit card press and hands me the triplicate to sign.
Bernie opens the door, which makes a tight fit. He runs his thumb over the top of a receipt spike. “Jason, Ellie wants to get her son on the soccer team.”
“I just pay for the uniforms.”
“Well, that’s a start,” Bernie says. “You got any shirts out in the back?”
Jason looks at his brother and suppresses a grin.
Bernie turns back to me. “Just bring him by practice on Wednesday, we’ll sort it out on the field.”
It’s after eleven when my mother emerges the next morning, looking tired and pale. I bustle around her, laying out an English muffin and fruit salad, asking how she slept. She picks at a few segments of grapefruit. There’s a thud as Stephen’s soccer ball collides with the outside wall and my mother jumps at the sound.
“The boys.”
My mother’s attention’s already lost. She opens and closes her right hand like a baby asking for a dropped toy.
“Do you need anything?”
She points at the bear-shaped honey bottle. Once I deliver it, however, she goes back to the fruit. I start to squeeze out some honey over her toast but she bats me away and it dribbles on the tablecloth. As I dab it clean with a J-cloth, I point to Stephen out the window. “He’s already gearing up for the team.”
“You should ask Bernie about that.”
I tilt my head, unsure of what she means. “I already talked to him.”
She half-nods, but it’s not convincing.
We sit in silence, each of us mirroring the other’s hunched mug clasp. It reminds me of when my father died and she’d sit me down at this same table those nights when I would wake up crying. She never showed her reaction to his death, just kept going tick tock tick, dependable. I was thirteen and so bereft of him. Seldom a week went by that first year that I didn’t have the same nightmare about my mother getting washed away at a picnic. We’d be at Cape Split—Mom, Dad and I—and we’d finished eating but the tide came thundering in too fast. Dad and I scrambled up to the cliff, but my mother floated out to sea on the red-chequered picnic blanket. As bad as losing my father had been, I must have known I’d be lost without my mother.
The only thing that changed about the dream was the food at the picnic. Sometimes it was peanut butter and banana sandwiches, sometimes roast beef, sometimes heaps of corn nuts. Mom called the part about her floating away “stuff and nonsense” but she encouraged me to detail the food. She’d hear me sobbing and set the kettle on to boil. That was my cue to come padding into the kitchen. She’d rummage around in the cupboard for the box of digestive biscuits and dole one out, saying “I think you’re just hungry.”
My mother’s still fussing with her breakfast but the colour in her face is improving. I try to casually mention another trip to the doctor but she snaps as soon as the words are out.
“You’re not going to truck me all across Kings County looking for a physician.”
“Will you at least book a physical? All I care about is blood work. It could just be that you’re borderline anaemic, that’s why you’re tired.”
My mother purses her lips. “I can tell you what the problem is—I’m getting old. That’s all there is to it. My mother was the same way.” She wipes a crumb off her lip. “If you insist on meddling, you can drive me down to Shoppers and I’ll shove my arm in that cuff device.”
The boys want to test their blood pressure as well. I leave them with my mother on the strict promise that they won’t use the machine more than twice, then go wait in the pharmacy parking lot. The car windows fog up quickly, turning the vehicle into a dank cocoon.
Richard would have flown home last night and I try to picture what the house is like now that he’s back. Ten to one, the luggage is still in the front hall and he’s eating a late lunch in front of the TV, still in his briefs. I wonder if he’s missing us yet, our family rituals, or if he’s revelling in the space. It’s been three days since we’ve spoken. He’s chatted with the boys but each time I’ve begged off with some excuse.
There’s a series of clunks as he answers, then silence. “Hang on,” his voice calls, distant, like he’s dropped the phone. When he gets back on the line the mechanical thudding’s still audible.
“Laundry.” The noise retreats as he walks upstairs. I didn’t think he’d get to the washing for at least another day.
“How’s the house?”
“Fine. Plants are watered. Mail is sorted. I stripped the sheets on the boys’ beds.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“It’s quiet.” Richard’s voice softens when he says it. There’s a vulnerability he isn’t trying to mask. “I thought I’d get another email from you.”
“I’ve been distracted with my mother.” I run him through the list of symptoms. Leaning into the phone, hearing his breathing on the other end, it doesn’t feel like we’re so far apart. The distance of the fight, of the trip, bridged by these data transfers and sound waves.
He tells me he misses me.
I miss him too. I ask about the conference.
“The folks at McGill are applying for funding to bring me on as a consultant. We’re going to try to run a section of the lab as a satellite research station, bring some grad students on. The best part is there’s whole outcroppings of the stuff. Even if it’s not the oldest, it’s a significant find. There’s already a lot of directions for spin-off investigation. How do you feel about a sabbatical in Montreal?”
It’s hard to fight down the welling jealousy, keep my reply jovial. “Sounds cold.”
“The boys can learn French. We’ll get fat on croissant.”
I rub my arm
against the window to clear the condensation. No sign of the boys yet. “Have you started on the article?”
“Tomorrow.” He’s nervous about it. Probably the only thing he doesn’t excel at, career-wise, is writing in laymen’s terms. BBC Science wants the hard research, but it’s general readership. At home, Richard’s got shelves devoted to all the popular science new releases in hopes that one day he’ll write a similar volume on geochronology and the origins of life. He’s been courting periodicals like BBC Science for a long time. “Can I email you the draft as I go?”
“Sure.”
“My goal for the end of next week is an outline.”
“It’s only twenty-five hundred words, right?” It’s a dig I shouldn’t have made.
His speech stiffens. “Have you started looking into winter postings yet?”
He knows I haven’t.
“How did the conversation with Prescott go after all?”
Richard doesn’t answer right away and there are noises in the background again.
“Don’t get angry.”
He’s back in the laundry room. The starchy transfer of wet clothes into the dryer fills his silence.
“It sounds stupid now. I thought once you got out there—it’d be a new perspective.”
He hasn’t told Prescott.
“It was stupid, wasn’t it?”
I’m not going into the whole argument again.
“You applied for me. You can quit for me.”
His voice itself is an apology but I don’t give a shit how contrite he sounds. The boys are walking across the parking lot, waving their blood pressure printouts in the air like lottery tickets.
“Drop the courses.” I pause. “Final word.”
The next stop is the library for the boys to check their email and my mother to pick up a mystery paperback. As they scatter to their separate purposes, I’m glad to be alone with my rage. I log onto the express terminal, my body thrumming, and cancel the flights we still have for later this summer. There’s a fifty dollar fee on each ticket, but I’m happy to swallow it. Next, I look up the address of Dr. Marc Morris, an old acquaintance from an agro conference at Guelph. It’s hard to keep my hand steady enough to navigate the mouse. Marc’s now acting chair of Acadia’s Earth Science department and I drop him a quick note to ask if he has time to meet. Acadia’s about as wide a net as I can cast.
At the soccer field in New Minas, Stephen bounds over to the coach. I scan the bleachers for Bernie, still unsure how to pay the registration fee. He’s over on the far side of the pitch with Linda. She doesn’t wave back.
“Forgot there’s a game today,” Bernie says when he reaches us. He looks down at Luke. “You ready to kick the ball around too?”
Luke shies beside me, eyes popping.
Bernie absently brushes a bit of fluff out of his hair—he must have come straight from work. He’s wearing tight jeans with holes in the knees, stains spattered on them and his T-shirt tucked-in. He holds his hand out to shake my mother’s. “You’re looking well, Lynne.”
“Not according to my daughter.” She points across the field. “You sitting over there then?”
“Yeah, that’s Linda—third row up.”
My mother takes Luke’s hand and the two of them cross the field.
“Cute kids,” Bernie says.
“Thanks.”
“Ellie and her pickaninnies.”
The term catches me so off guard that I stop walking and have to stumble to catch up to Bernie. My eyes dart to Stephen and Luke, worried they’ve heard. I’d forgotten the way people out here can be. Bernie glances at me to see why I’ve slowed our pace. “We never use that word.”
Bernie shrugs an apology. “Lindie says mulatto.”
“I don’t like that word either.” We usually say “multiracial” even though it sounds like my sons are human versions of Expo’s “Cultures of the World” pavilion.
“Cute kids anyway.”
This high-school reunion may have been a mistake. A wall of anxiety builds as we reach Stephen.
The team has already started their warm-up. The boys are doing jumping jacks in a double line, the coach in front, barking out the count. Stephen’s already wearing the team jersey but the coach has him waiting at the side.
Bernie makes the introductions. “This here’s Donnie. Donnie, Ellie.”
Donnie’s a short man, bald and marble-eyed but with hulking calves and biceps. He stands with his feet wide apart, hands on his hips, wearing an outdated neon windbreaker.
“Thanks for letting my son join the league.”
Bernie shifts from foot to foot and Donnie looks up at him. “Well, Bernie mentioned it, but I told him to talk to the Parks and Rec. I’m not supposed to put a kid in without the paperwork.”
“Donnie,” Bernie says, “you know what the Parks and Rec people are like.”
“Tighter than the bishop’s ass come Sunday morning,” he chortles, checking for my reaction. “But I don’t want to get in trouble with them.”
Again, I glance over to make sure my son hasn’t overheard.
“My brother already gave him a shirt.” Bernie lowers his voice. “I figured we could make an arrangement like we did with Max.”
Donnie frowns and checks his watch. “Your boy work hard?”
“Soccer’s pretty much all he’s got on his mind.”
Donnie snorts, then scratches his thigh, near the crotch. He nods towards Bernie. “You can explain about the payment. If anyone asks, I’ll say I lost the form.”
Bernie claps him on the shoulder and Donnie looks up at him, subtly flexing his muscles. On the way back, Bernie tells me that he’d already agreed to as much, but he likes to jerk people’s chains. I just have to pay him the registration fee under the table.
Stephen catches my eye as we walk past and I give two thumbs up. Donnie walks over to him and kicks the ball back and forth a few times, testing his reflexes. There’s not much time for an evaluation, so Donnie just whistles and starts running the team through drills.
As we make for the bleachers it strikes me once again that my sons are the only black kids on the field. It wasn’t as noticeable when we were just running errands, but now that there’s an assembly of people, the homogeny is overwhelming.
Nova Scotia’s always had a strong black community but it’s also been heavily segregated into predominantly black towns outside of Halifax. My mother used to tell me about a high-school friend who briefly dated a black Dalhousie student. When her parents found out, they kicked her out of the house for a week. That was in the late sixties, around the time the government bulldozed through the town of Africville to make way for the MacKay bridge.
Up ahead, my mother’s parked on the lowest bench with Luke.
“Come on sit up with me and Linda,” Bernie says. “Lisa’s at her Nan’s.”
“Your mom’s?”
“Her father’s actually.”
I stifle my surprise.
“I didn’t tell you the other day—Linda and I’ve only been together for the past four years.”
“You all seem to get along really well.”
“Tryin’,” he says. “Just trying.” He calls to Linda and she gestures with her hands, what? She exhales her cigarette smoke, clearly annoyed and marches down the bleachers.
“Hi, Linda.”
“Yep.” She’s wearing tight tapered jeans and a cropped tank that shows off her belly ring—a pink rhinestone heart. I feel ancient around her.
“Well,” Bernie says, “the boy’s on the team.” He puts his arm around Linda’s waist and pulls her in to kiss the top of her head. She leads him up to her group of friends.
Luke wants to sit up higher too. Linda and her friends begrudgingly move their feet down from the bench to make room. Linda points her cigarette at the other women. “Gail, Diane, Sandra.”
“Hi,” I say.
No response.
The ref is young—seventeen tops—with the run of an adolescent w
hose limbs have outgrown his coordination.
Linda hollers at him. “Get going, will ya.”
One of her friends adds, “Don’t go soft on Kentville.”
The ref doesn’t hear them and continues chatting with the coaches at centre field. The kids are in position, all ready to go and I notice that Stephen’s off to the side, near the back. I can’t remember the names of the positions but it’s defence. Max’s front and centre.
“Quit your moaning, boys,” Gail calls. “I want to eat dinner before it walks off.”
The poor ref is getting an earful from the Kentville coach and Donnie looks ready to punch. The coin toss hasn’t even happened yet. Finally the kid pulls himself together, pushing the two men apart and blows firmly into his whistle. The bleating temporarily stuns them.
“Course Donnie’s only pissed because his wife’s left him again,” Gail drawls.
Linda swivels around and I watch her discreetly. “I heard they were back together. I heard they tried that couples’ therapy.”
“Nah,” Gail says. “I seen her just last week at the Cineplex with that guy from the service station sucking face at The Da Vinci Code.”
“That new guy at the Irving?” Sandra cackles, then mouths, “Hung like a fucking horse.” She spreads her hands a good two feet apart.
Luke leans in and asks, “What’s sucking face?”
Linda answers, “That’s eating popcorn.”
He looks up at me sceptically. I just nod and point at the field, where the play has finally begun.
The kids on the Kentville team are about a foot taller than most of Stephen’s teammates. Their brawn alone is going to make it difficult for our team to win—apparently they creamed the Canning boys last year. One of the Kentville boys bludgeons his way through a wall of our players and instantly scores a goal. Max tries to kick it out from underneath the player, but gets knocked down by the kid’s shoulder.
Linda screams out encouragement. “You get up and show them.” The other women whoop in solidarity.